What’s New in Microsoft EDU | ISTE Edition June 2024
Welcome to our monthly update for Teams for Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! We’re thrilled to share over 20 updates and resources and show them in action next week at ISTELive 24 in Denver, Colorado, US. Join us at the show to learn more and hear about the latest from Microsoft Education at our booth and in dozens of sessions.
Enjoy, and see you there!
ISTE Topics
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Educator Features
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Learner Features
- Learning Accelerators Updates including two new progress applications
- Learning Management System Integration
- Teams Updates
- Clipchamp Updates
- Visual Studio Code for Education
We’ve loved seeing the early adoption and benefits from education institutions already using Microsoft Copilot, our no-cost AI-powered chat with data protection, and Copilot for Microsoft 365, an add-on for AI assistance integrated with the apps you use every day.
Our first two topics today are about even more value we’re bringing to education in Copilot for Microsoft 365 with a new set of capabilities designed for relevant and powerful use by educators and students. These features will be included in Copilot for Microsoft 365 and will be in private previews over the coming months. Education institutions with any academic license are eligible to purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365, with no minimum, for their faculty, staff, and students aged 18 and older.
1. Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Educator features
Guided Content Creation
Coming soon to Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a guided content generation experience to help educators get started with creating materials like assignments, lesson plans, lecture slides, and more. The content will be created based on the educator’s requirements with easy ways to customize the content to their exact needs.
This experience will be available across Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, Word, OneNote and PowerPoint.
When: Early 2025
Standards alignment and creation
We are thrilled to announce our partnership with EdGate to integrate learning standards from over 35 countries into our AI features in Teams for Education and Microsoft 365. Integrating EdGate’s comprehensive and global standards set will empower educators to select standards that are relevant to their classes or assignments. allowing them to create high-quality, tailored content. Educators will have the flexibility to choose standards based on location, subject, language, and other criteria.
Standards will be seamlessly integrated into all our AI processes, including assignment creation, rubric generation, Classwork modules, lesson planning, and more, across various M365 and Teams platforms. We are eager about the potential of this feature to assist educators in crafting class materials that are not only relevant and engaging but also pedagogically aligned.
When: Private Preview later this year
Quiz generation through Copilot in Forms
In June, Copilot in Forms will support quiz generation. Educators can tell Copilot what they want to test, such as specific topics covered in class, and Copilot will create a well-crafted quiz draft with correct answers. Educators can then review the questions, remove any they don’t want, add new ones, and finally keep the draft for use. Copilot also provides step-by-step solutions for each question, which educators can check and modify if needed or ask Copilot to regenerate.
Once the quiz is ready, Copilot will suggest assigning it to the corresponding Teams "Class," and educators can send it to students with one click. After students complete the quiz, educators can check the responses on the result page.
When: August
Additionally, Copilot can draft quizzes based on pasted content or attached reference files educators provided.
When: July
Once the quiz is sent out, students will receive a message in the corresponding Teams chat. With just one click, they can start answering the quiz. After turning in, they can review detailed solution steps to re-practice or self-study at their own pace.
When: August
Suggested AI Feedback for Educators
Our recent research found that students are already leveraging AI to quickly receive initial feedback on their work. We’re excited to help educators do the same in meaningful ways with suggested AI feedback. Educators review, edit, or discard suggested student feedback, which is based on individual student progress, rubrics selections, or assignment instructions. Educators can start by selecting initial rubric scores and then add the corresponding draft feedback directly into student Word documents in the form of comments or share overall feedback in a Teams Assignment.
When: Private Preview later this year
Teaching extension
To better support educators with their daily tasks, we’ll be launching a built-in Teaching extension to help guide them through relevant activities and provide contextual, educator-based support in Copilot. They’ll see custom prompts to get started with tasks like creating lesson plans, building interactive lectures, designing assignments, or developing learning goals. Over time, we’ll expand the options to bring even more educator specific activities to help them save time and focus on their students.
When: Private Preview later this year
Education data integration
For staff, educators, and students to be able to maximize the value of Copilot for Microsoft 365, it’s essential to have access to relevant data and files. We’re introducing education data integration to generate more helpful responses, insights, and content based on personal and organizational information. This will include data from Teams for Education such as Classwork, Assignments, Grades, class rosters, and more. We’ll also integrate data from Learning Management Systems (LMS) in the future for simpler, connected, experiences across platforms including many of these new AI-powered capabilities.
When: private preview later this year
2. Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Student features
Interactive practice experiences
Pedagogical research affirms what we all know intuitively; when learners are actively practicing their learning material, whether it’s by employing critical thinking, dialoging or merely testing their knowledge – the learning process becomes much more effective and engaging.
Today we introduce two first generative learning and practice experiences, that allow educators and learners to assess their knowledge based on the specific learning content provided in the creation process.
Wherever learning content and learning intent exist
Gradually we will make practice experiences available wherever the educator or the learner content resides – whether it’s a OneNote page, a Word document, a learning extension, or a Teams for Education class, you would be able to simply ask Copilot to convert your learning content into an activity, quickly review it, and embed it back into your content. The first entry point that will enable these features is Copilot in OneNote, in which the content of a page may be converted into flashcards and be embedded back into the page for practicing or sharing.
When: Available for private preview later this year
Flashcards activity
The well-known and loved flashcards activity can now be created directly from the learning content. The creator can review the flashcards created, add hints, add images, and then practice or share with their students or peers. Practicing flashcards always ends with a summary of what the learner already knows and what may need additional repetition.
When: now in private preview
Guided chat activity
Guided chat experiences, building on flashcards, converts the learning content into a set of cards, but in this activity, the learner gets a mini-dialoging experience for each card, which enables microlearning to reduce cognitive overload and removes learning roadblocks, as well as provide a way to overcome compliance bias (e.g. when the learner believes they recall the information but actually they just recognize it) – the learner can start by answering each card in their own words, and have the tool given them hints as well as evaluate their knowledge as they progress toward the full answer. If there are missing pieces of knowledge or if the learner just wants to dive deeper into the material, they can do so simply by continuing the conversation on the specific card, allowing them the opportunity for higher level learning.
When: Private Preview later this year
Learning extension in Copilot for Microsoft 365
To better support students with their daily tasks, we’ll also be launching a built-in Learning extension to help guide them through relevant activities and provide contextual, student-based support in Copilot. Students will get additional help to learn specific topics, test their learnings or receive initial feedback on their work. As we learn from institutions, new options will be added to support students throughout their learning journey.
When: Private preview later this year
3. Learning Accelerator updates
Speaker Progress
We are so excited to announce that Speaker Progress, our newest Learning Accelerator, is generally available on July 1st! Speaker Progress helps students develop confidence in their presentation skills and reduces anxiety by providing real-time coaching and feedback on their public speaking skills like their pace, pitch, filler words, and more. Speaker Progress can also save educators time and create more opportunities for independent practice for in class presentations.
Educators can create Speaker Progress assignments and customize the Speaker Coach tips shown to students.
Students can record a presentation and get real-time feedback from Speaker Coach on their content, delivery, and audience engagement. If allowed by the educator, students can see a rehearsal report of their top strengths and opportunities.
Educators can review student presentations including the rehearsal report and rich insights on how the student is progressing over time on their presentation skills.
When: Generally available July 1st!
Learn more here:
- Microsoft Learn Course: Develop confident presenters with Speaker Progress – Training | Microsoft Learn
- Educator Get Started: Getting started with Speaker Progress for educators – Microsoft Support
- Student Get Started: Getting started with Speaker Progress for students – Microsoft Support
Math Progress
The wait is (almost) over! We are excited to announce that Math Progress is coming to private preview in July.
Math Progress helps accelerate math skill gains by streamlining the creation, review, and analysis of math practice for educators and providing feedback to students on the problems they did not solve correctly. Actionable insights help them collect and visualize data at the student and class level to track progress and improve student outcomes.
Educators can create Math Progress assignments with the help of AI problem generator that provides high-quality and relevant math questions.
Once learners submit their work, educators can review the automatically graded assignment and rich insights on learners progress over time, including the mistakes and misconceptions demonstrated in this and other assignments.
Get started with Microsoft Learn Course: Support building mathematics skills with Math Progress – Training | Microsoft Learn
When: Private preview starting in July!
Learning Accelerators Updated Create Flow
To make it easier for you to get started with creating Learning Accelerators we have added a new entry point in the create button in Assignments.
When: Generally available now!
Microsoft Reflect
New Reflect brain breaks celebrating Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2
Teens juggle a rollercoaster of emotions at school and beyond, making it crucial to help them recognize and navigate these feelings. That’s why we’re expanding the tools and resources available in Reflect. Discover the new Reflect brain breaks celebrating Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, including read-aloud stories, games, and coloring pages featuring beloved characters from the movie.
When: Generally available now!
Reflect Compass
Reflect can now further improve understanding by allowing educators to generate options for students to specify the reasons behind the emotion. These options are tailored to the registration question set by the educator and are based on multi-year research by experts at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Educators can regenerate, manually add, or completely discard results. The reasons can then be grouped at the class level into a predefined list of focus areas with strategies on how to navigate each in partnership with Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
When: Rollout begins early July and continues throughout the summer
Reading Coach standalone app for web/Windows, school and home
Microsoft’s FREE AI-powered Reading Coach provides personalized, engaging reading fluency practice with safe, one-of-a-kind AI generated stories, a fully accessible Immersive Reader, targeted practice on challenging words, and rewards that keep learners in the flow of reading.
Summer Reading Quest
Looking for a way to prevent summer reading loss? Bingo! Encourage your students to take the Reading Coach Summer Reading Quest to meet reading goals and earn exclusive stickers and posters!
To stay tuned for updates and get swag for completing the quest, join the Reading Coach Educator community at https://aka.ms/ReadingCoach-EducatorCommunity
Find the handout and bingo card at https://aka.ms/ReadingCoachShareoutMaterials
Free, exclusive PD webinars
10 schools from all over the world will get free, hands-on PD webinars with the Reading Coach team! For directions on how to participate, join the educator community at https://aka.ms/ReadingCoach-EducatorCommunity
Coming for back-to-school
- Reading Coach in multiple locales/languages
- Progress over time metrics for learners
- Placement in M365.com for easier discoverability and access
When: General availability in fall/early Winter
Flip Video Camera now in Teams Assignments
We are excited to share that the Flip video camera is now available in Teams for Education. In Teams Assignments, educators can use the Flip camera to record video instructions and students can use the Flip camera to record video responses to assignments. Creators can personalize their videos using all of the incredible features of the Flip camera, including lenses, backgrounds, stickers, frames, inking, and more!
When: Generally available now!
Updated Grading Flow for Quiz Assignments
Support for Grading Schemes
We have now added support for Customer Grading Schemes to be supported for Quiz Assignments as well. If your class has setup grading schemes , you can now choose those for your Quiz Assignment, and the points in the Quiz will automatically be converted to your scheme.
Support for entering grades
We have heard from many teachers of the need to be able to manually enter in the score for a student. This could be for student that did not complete the test, or they do it face to face with the teacher, or other reasons. We have now added the ability for you to enter in Grade directly in Assignment, and also override the grade within Assignments.
Support for Mark as Excused
Many of our teachers use the "Mark as Excused" feature to remove students from individual assignments, such as when a student is absent due to illness or other reasons. We have now added this functionality to Quiz Assignments as well.
When: Generally available now!
Updated Feedback Field for Grading
We have heard you , you want to provide more detail in the feedback for your students. We are now adding full rich edits for the grading experience, with support up to 10,000 characters and full formatting support.
When: Preview later this fall
4. Learning Management System integration
Many educators rely on a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Schoology or Canvas to manage their classroom content and activities. Many students rely on their LMS to be the central location where they can access all their assignments and grades. The new Teams Assignments LTI takes a giant step forward in bringing more of the unique value of Microsoft Education directly into the daily workflows of LMS users. With Teams Assignments now seamlessly integrated into their LMS, educators and students can access capabilities such as Learning Accelerators, Flip Video Assignments, Forms Quizzes, Whiteboard assignments, rubric creation with AI, and more. Educators can create, link, and access Teams assignments directly within their LMS courses. Students can view and access those assignments in their LMS courses. Assignment grades are automatically imported into the LMS gradebook. Expanding on Microsoft Education’s current set of LMS integrations, this new tool unites the power of Teams for Education with some of the world’s most popular learning platforms.
When: Now in Private Preview for Schoology and Canvas. Additional LMS support is coming soon. Sign up here.
5. Teams updates
New Microsoft Teams
Reimagined and enhanced with a performance-first mindset, the new Teams is faster, lighter, and more flexible than ever before.
- Faster: The app will be twice as fast, from scrolling to switching chats.
- Lighter: The app consumes 50% fewer resources (memory)
- Flexible: Innovations that streamline multiple tenants or accounts, giving you more extensibility and scale
When: Now Generally Available, T1 End of support by June 30th
Educator-led parent data ingestion inside the Parent App (without SDS)
With this release, we’re providing a way for schools to ingest parent contact information without setting up SDS. Educators now have an option to add or edit parent contact details for each child inside the Parent app, and request the IT admin for approval. The changes are not reflected until the admin approves it. To learn more, please visit this link.
When: Now Generally Available
School Connection access to parents via their phone number
The School Connection app in Microsoft Teams (mobile) empowers parents and guardians to stay informed about their child’s classroom progress in real-time, with no extra work required from educators.
So far, parents were granted access to School Connection if they logged-in to Teams (mobile) with their personal email. With this release (coming in July 2024), we’re glad to announce that a parent can choose to login to Teams (mobile) with their phone number and get access to School Connection! Please note that these parent contact details need to be saved by the school first for access to be granted to the child’s school records. You can learn more about School Connection by visiting this link.
When: July 2024
Deep link for parents to directly access School Connection in Teams
To simplify onboarding to School Connection, schools can now share this deep link with parents: https://aka.ms/gotoschoolconnection. This will enable a parent to directly access School Connection in Teams (mobile) without navigating through Settings to pin the app. If a parent does not have the Teams app installed on their mobile device, this link will first take a parent to their mobile app store (on iOS or Android) to install the Teams app, sign-in and directly land on School Connection.
When: Now Generally Available
6. Clipchamp for Educators and Students
We are excited to announce that Clipchamp, a video editing tool that empowers educators and students to create engaging videos, will be available for Microsoft 365 Education with our A3 and A5 licenses. Starting in July, education customers can access Clipchamp and start making amazing videos with ease. It may take a few days or weeks to get access, depending on your global location.
Clipchamp is designed to make video creation easy for everyone, regardless of skill or experience level. You can combine video clips, images, and audio files with text and effects to create videos worthy of sharing. Whether it’s recording experiments, presenting research, or producing multimedia projects, Clipchamp enhances student engagement and learning outcomes.
Clipchamp also helps students develop future-ready skills, such as communication, creativity, and collaboration. With its user-friendly interface, Clipchamp makes video editing accessible to learners of all levels, empowering them to explore and express their ideas effectively.
Clipchamp is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft 365, so you can store your videos in OneDrive and SharePoint and watch or share them with Microsoft Stream. You can also use centralized IT controls, single sign-on, and security features within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Clipchamp is more than just a video editor. It’s a canvas for imagination to flourish. To learn more about Clipchamp, visit our website and Clipchamp Support.
When: Rollout begins early July and continues throughout the summer
7. Visual Studio Code for Education
In this age of AI, Microsoft believes that it is more important than ever for every student to have access to equitable computer science education to help prepare them for the future. We’re happy to announce the release of our latest product to empower the next generation of developers — Visual Studio Code for Education (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vscode-edu). It’s completely free and online with Web Development and Python curriculum available for educators. Visual Studio Code for EDU works with both Microsoft or Google IDs to sign in.
When: Available globally now!
And finally, just to recap all the news we have for you this month, here’s a quick review of all the features that are generally available or are rolling out now:
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Educator updates
- Standards Alignment
- Content Creation
- Quiz Creation with Copilot in Forms
- Teaching extension
- Suggested AI feedback
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Student updates
- Learning extension
- Interactive practice experiences
- Learning Accelerator updates
- Introducing Speaker Progress
- Introducing Math Progress
- New Learning accelerator create flow
- Reading Coach Standalone for Web and Windows
- New PD Sessions for Reading Coach
- Learning Management System Integration
- LTI Assignments and Learning Accelerator integration
- Teams updates
- Flip Video Recorder in Assignments
- New Quiz Grading Flow in Assignments
- Expanded Rich Feedback in Assignments Speed Grader
- New Teams Update
- Educator-led parent data ingestion inside the Parent App Clipchamp in EDU
- School Connection access to parents via their phone number
- Deep link for parents to directly access School Connection in Teams
- Clipchamp for Educators and Students
- Visual Studio Code for Education
Have any feedback to share with us? As always, we’d love to hear it!
We are always looking to improve the education experience in Teams, and our favorite way to do that is with your support and awesome ideas! If there is something you would like to see in Teams for Education, please let us know!
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/education-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-edu-iste-edition-june-2024/ba-p/4169520 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/education-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-edu-iste-edition-june-2024/ba-p/4169520 2024-06-18 13:00:00Z